Life, 1899-09-07 · page 15 of 20
Life — September 7, 1899 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the burden of homework on American families. The left illustration shows chaotic domestic chaos—parents and relatives frantically calculating grocery costs and fabric prices to solve arithmetic "examples" assigned to schoolchildren ages 11-12. Writer Agnes Repplier argues this system is cruel: children's minds are in "chaotic confusion," yet parents must do unpaid labor at home helping with lessons. She calls for educational reform so schoolwork happens *in school*, freeing parents from evening torment. The right side contains unrelated advertisements/humor: a champagne toast illustration and a satirical poem by "Flora McUttor McEvilish" about a woman who claims to be proper but becomes "devilish" only when smoking—poking fun at women's affected respectability. The page critiques early-20th-century education policy while depicting the very real domestic frustration homework caused before modern school systems changed.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC. LIDRA—SRPTEMCER, and mothers, aunts, elder sisters, and even chance visitors are kept hard at work all evening trying to find out the cost of a few pitiful gallons of molasses, most of which seems to have leaked out of the barrels, while the remainder is eold for any price the unfortunate grocer can get for it, Or perhaps merchant has bought sixty pounds of coffee for fifteen dollars and a half, and has spent all his profits on three yards and a quar- ter of velvet at two dollars and ninety- cight cents a yard—his wife fancying it a bargain—and now, being plainly weak- minded, he wants to know how much more he got for his coffee than he paid for it, and I—I, who never sold a pound of groccries in my life—am expected to tell him, To give such “examples” to little scholars, cleven and twelve years old, whose minds are in a state of chaotic confusion, is foolish and cruel, and the society which exists for the protcction of children should hasten to their rescue. As for the unfortunate adults in whose behalf no philanthropist offers a plea, our only hope Hes in revolutionary meth- ods; in a new system which will permit school work to be done, as it should be TO THE WINNER.” done, in school, and will limit home labor tothe mere hearing of recitationsand mak- ing out of reports. Then will the parent be light of heart, and he will bless the widespread knowledge of the world, instead of sympathizing with the little girl who wished she had been born in the reign of Charles II., when ‘‘educa- tion was much neglected " Agnes Repplier. AID Flora McUttor McEvilish, “Twill tell you the truth—on the levilish T'm quite proper—no joking! It is only when smoking That [ feel just too utterly devilish 1" comicbooks.com